Internal
by Besina
Summary: Just a one-shot wherein John is injured and Sherlock deals with it - in multiple ways.


Written by Besina  
May 14, 2013

* * *

"Sherlock?" John wheezed somewhat painfully. The volume he'd managed was unlikely to travel the entire distance it needed to get downstairs and to the detective's ears.

It hadn't hurt this badly earlier.

"Sher-lock!" That was a bit louder though still more of a gasp than a yell.

He managed to tumble out of bed and catch himself on all fours, and begin crawling toward the door. His oomph gave out just as he reached it. He'd have to sit or stand up to reach the knob.

His cane, unused now for over a year, still sat in the corner beside the door. He knocked it over, hoping to cause some sort of ruckus. It simply clanked hollowly as it hit the floor.

He hauled himself up onto his knees, jostling the knob open. He breifly palpated his abdomen - yup. Fuck. Distented. The fight they'd been in with a few thugs earlier that day hadn't seemed that bad - it had been rough, but he hadn't thought his beating had been bad enough to cause an internal injury. Bugger.

The door creaked open, he pulled himself a small way out of it and tried Sherlock's name once again. "Sher-" Ow. "Sher-" Ow. "Sherlock!" Yelling, or at least trying to, shouldn't wear one out so much.

Still, Sherlock wasn't going to hear him. Not like this. He scooted his leg back, hooked his foot around the cane and, grimacing, pulled it toward his hand.

He then managed to draw himself into a sitting position on the landing, and chucked the blasted thing with every bit of energy he had left, down the stairs at the door to the flat. The resounding *clang* was highly satisfying.

The fact that it took Sherlock mere moments to throw the door wide might have made John's heart warm had he not known that worry for him had probably played equal parts with curiousity and boredom on his flatmate's part.

Sherlock glanced up to the landing where the doctor now sat, breathing hard with one arm wrapped around his midsection.

"John? I thought you'd fallen down the stairs."

The curiousity turned to concern when he saw the odd place and posture, the ashen aspect of John's face and the waxy sheen it currently held.

"John?" He was up the stairs in three bounds and crouched down at his side in fewer seconds than could be accurately measured.

John was panting through his mouth now. How in the world had he managed to miss this earlier? Then again, he _had_ given it time to get worse.

"Internal rupture... of some sort," he explained.

Sherlock nodded and immediately pulled out his phone, dialling the ambulance.

John was feeling wrecked. He leaned his head forward against Sherlock, almost wishing the man had his coat on so he could hold on to something.

"When?" Sherock asked, across the back of his head.

"Earlier..."

It seemed to be all the explanation that was required.

"Can you move?"

"Yes, but unless the house is on fire, I'm not going to..." There was a pause for breath, "It practically killed me getting this far."

"Can I see?" There was really no reason for this other than his desire to feel useful and a gnawing curiousity that always needed to be fed, but the detective took John's motion of leaning back against the railing as an invitation.

He rucked up the doctor's shirt to see a large, very puffy, purple blotch spread across the man's front and wrapping a bit to each side. The bruising was not very forthcoming - with that pattern, it could have been the liver or the spleen; possibly both, and as serious as either could be, John's breathing had him worried that it might be something worse.

"God, I feel dizzy", John moaned at him, as he let his face fall against Sherlock's shoulder once more.

Blood loss. John surely knew this just as well as Sherlock, but he wasn't mentioning it.

"They'll be here soo..." He was only partway through his comment when John slumped against him, all his weight now leaning on Sherlock, who was precariously balanced in a squatting position on the balls of his feet, with John's face now completely smushed against him.

Sherlock considered trying to wake him up, but there was no good that was going to do, with the lack of blood, he'd just pass out again.

Instead, he managed to turn John around, loop his hands beneath the doctor's shoulders and across his chest, and started backing down the stairs slowly, trying to get the doctor to the door in order to speed up the trip to the hospital.

He'd rounded the landing with only a few steps to go when the sirens wailed outside. He finished the trip, lay John down just inside the door, and opened it for the ambulance crew.

He stayed at the hospital just long enough to determine John was going to pull through, before he swept away on a new case which had suddenly gripped his interest just as soon as it was apparent something was wrong with John.

John getting hurt on some cases? Not good, but unavoidable.

John getting hurt in a way that scared Sherlock? No. Oh, no - _that_ didn't happen.

He had a thug to find. Again. His fingers itched in a way they hadn't in years.

-

Sherlock visited regularly and John was given the green light to go home after three days.

Now Sherlock always did say John wasn't the most observant of people (better than _most_, but still...), but it took John nearly a week to notice the bruising on Sherlock's knuckles. (He was kind and chalked it up to medication and discomfort.)

"Sherlock? What happened?"

"Mm?"

"Your hand."

Sherlock raised his hand in front of his face and made a show of inspecting the bruises.

"Oh that? Nothing. Experiment." He dropped it absently back into his lap.

"Experiment?" John echoed.

"Mm."

"Do I want to know?"

"No." Sherlock picked up his book again.

John was smart enough to let it go. If it had included exploding kitchens or beating up corpses during the three days he'd been away, Sherlock was right, he _didn't_ want to know.

Coincidentally, a week and three days after the incident was when the hospital's newest intensive care patient was finally downgraded to stable.

* * *

End Notes:

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Thanks for reading!


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